Searching for RAW MCE commands

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Really excited about this device As it looks like it is going to open up communicating and controlling PC's using programmable remotes.

I have several decades of experience with the "One for All" universal remotes including the "JP1" programming interface as well as a number of years working with Harmony remotes. I have worked extensively with microsoft MCE remotes and the microsoft MCE IR keyboard including delving into the protocol problems such as MCE keyboard commands triggering events on other, unrelated IR controlled devices.

The Flirc USB dongle also has another welcome feature... it's Windows driver has the capability to "wake" a computer from "sleep" mode, where the ms eHome IR dongles cannot bring a sleeping computer back.

My primary goal is to find out what additional (native to windows) characters are available in the "MCE Protocol" used by the microsoft vended IR remotes. If you know of any characters that the protocol supports beyond the keys on the MCE remotes, please post.

More later... will be out of commission for a few days, but looking forward to learning more.

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Experimenting with the Flirc without the Flirc software and drivers installed, it appears that Flirc's native USB HID input to windows is limited.

The only reference I have is to use the microsoft MCE remote which starts out with a limited keypad to begin with.

What I was able to determine is that the number pad, cursor pad, <enter>, <clear> (backspace), and play/pause controls work, but none of the Media Center Edition specific controls appear to work.

I also noticed that the MCE remote in the controllers section does not contain all of the microsoft MCE buttons... notably, the PC Pwr button (which is actually <sleep>)

Once the software and drivers were installed, using the "windows keyboard" layout provided the windows commands that I needed such as <Win-D> (show desktop) and, surprisingly, <ctrl-alt-s> (which is the keystroke trigger for my shortcut to put the computer to <sleep>)

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To clarify, I'm active on another Universal Remote forum and have a media center project based around a win8.1 computer with Media Center Edition installed.

My recent quest has been to find and test widely available USB IR dongles that can be used with programmable remote controls and post those findings to the above forum so that others with the same needs can locate and purchase the best option for use with PC's.

In addition, part of my search is for an IR input dongle that does not require special software.

It appears that while the Flirc and a couple of other brands are good options for that need, I'm finding, as with all other IR input options, there are confusions. The one HUGE asset that Flirc default driver has is it's ability to bring a PC out of a <sleep> state where the Microsoft "eHome" IR dongle drivers do not.

Without installing any Flirc software or drivers, your Flirc receives and correctly inputs (apparently via generic HID) a number of the keys on Microsoft MCE remotes... specifically the numeric, cursor and "transport" buttons on those remotes.

I was hoping that the Flirc could receive native HID keyboard keys sent with the MCE IR protocols such as the <space> key but that doesn't seem to be possible without installing and mapping the keys using the Flirc software (which I have done, tested and currently using) Again, the goal is to look for a "lowest common denominator" option.

The Microsoft MCE remotes that I have all include a "PC" button that transmits the windows <sleep> key found on many PC keyboards. That command is not on your "MCE remote" nor on your "Full Keyboard" templates. (I was able to create it by programming <Ctrl-Alt-S> which triggers a shortcut to the windows command line for sleep)

The other commands that I was hoping were natively available MCE commands such as <space> are available to be mapped using your "Full Keyboard" template.